The Rüstem
Pasha Mosque(Rüstem
Paşa Camii, 1560) in Istanbul's Eminönü district
by the Golden
Horn, is among the city's architectural
gems—yet seen by
few foreign visitors.

This is the first example of the great
Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan building
a mosque to an octagonal plan.

Although small, it is beautifully
proportioned (as you can
see in the photo to the right), and
the interior is covered in some of
the most exquisite İznik faience (colored
tiles) ever produced.

The tiles,
made at the height of Iznik's supremacy,
have a good deal of the famous red color
that was the envy of other tilemakers
(blue, yellow, white and green
were easy colors to produce, but
red was
extraordinarily difficult.)

Notice also the kündekâri doors
of carved and inlaid wood, and the
intricate gilded trim (kalemisi) high
on the walls and ceiling in the vestibule.

Rüstem Pasha (1500-1561),
a Bosnian by birth, was the son-in-law
and a grand vezir of Sultan
Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566).
Although competent, he is remembered
in history for having plotted with
Süleyman's wife, the famous Roxelana(Hürrem
Sultan) to denounce Prince
Mustafa, Süleyman's
son and heir to the throne, as mastermind
of an army plot to dethrone the sultan.
Süleyman had Mustafa beheaded,
which allowed Roxelana's son Prince
Selim,
an incompetent drunkard interested
only in the pleasures of the harem,
to succeed to the throne.

Colored tiles & lamps in the Rüstem Pasha Mosque...

Roxelana
died in 1558, but her son Selim
the Sot (1566-1574) did ascend
to the throne upon Süleyman's
death. Selim's reign is considered
the end of the great period of the Ottoman
Empire, and the beginning of its
long decline.

(Each of the sultan's wives and concubines
wanted her own son to succeed to the
throne because then she, the mother,
would become Valide Sultan (Queen
Mother), the second-most powerful position
in the empire.)

Although the pasha was among the wealthiest
men in the Ottoman
Empire at the height of its power
and glory, as the sultan's humble servant,
it was not Rüstem's place to build
a grand mosque that might rival that
of his imperial master. So he selected
a site in the midst of the
market, at the foot of the
hill crowned by Süleyman's grand
mosque, the Süleymaniye—Istanbul's
largest.

Instead of size and grandeur,
Rüstem sought exquisite artistic
refinement, and that's what
he got.